In my previous post, I described the results of a survey about the use of digital texts in Bible study. One of the more intriguing aspects of that survey had to do with the question of focus. Some felt that studying in Accordance helped them avoid "losing lines of thought while looking for information," while others felt that their reading was more "fragmentary" because they lost sight of context or were distracted by the multitude of available resources. So what can you do to take advantage of Accordance's strengths without letting it take your focus away from the text? This week, I'll give you a series of tips to help you remove distractions and focus on the text.

If anyone has the potential to become distracted by a multiplicity of resources, I probably have more. On any given day, I may be error-checking several new Accordance modules, beta-testing a new update to the Accordance application, trying to help someone on our user forums, using Accordance in family devotions, looking things up to help my kids with their schoolwork, and so on. I usually end up with numerous zones with tons of tabs containing a wide variety of resources opened for very different purposes. When I need to focus, I rely on one feature that I regard as absolutely priceless: the ability to Magnify one zone to fill an entire workspace.

To magnify a zone, simply hover over its title bar until you see the little plus icon appear, then click it. That zone will then expand to fill the workspace, and all the other zones will be hidden from view. What better way to focus on something than to hide all the distractions?

For example, this afternoon, while I was in the middle of several projects, my daughter came to me with some questions about biblical geography. I opened a map, then magnified that zone to hide all the other stuff I'd been working on. When I had answered her questions, I closed the zone and went back to my work.

Magnifying a zone is one of the easiest ways I know to sweep aside the clutter and focus on one thing at a time. If it hasn't yet become a major part of your workflow, you're missing out.

Archived Comments

Julie Falling

October 12, 2011 6:24 AM

Magnifying a zone is great when using a graphical tool. However, I do not like to read a text that takes up my entire desktop, even on my 15" MacBook Pro – the page is just too wide for comfortable reading for me. Sometimes I open the browser just to narrow the width of the text. Is it just me, or do others have an issue with full-screen text?

Allen Watson

October 12, 2011 1:52 PM

I agree; I have a 24" monitor and full screen text is very hard to read. But I use a utility called Flexiglass, which, with a single key combination (Cmd-Ctrl-Option-Left Arrow) will collapse any window to the left half of the screen (or right half, with right arrow). That works fine to make the lines short enough to be readable. When I exit the "full screen" mode, I then expand the window back to full screen with Flexiglass using Cmd-Ctrl-Opt-F.

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